Albert Rivera, Alberto Garzón, Pablo Iglesias, Mariano Rajoy and Pedro Sánchez began their frenetic17-day electoral campaigns yesterday, with meetings, messages, social network activity, speeches, debates, photos, etc. all designed to win the last indecisive voters over ahead of the December 20th deadline.
Current predictions suggest that these general elections will be the country's most closely fought since democracy was restored after Franco's dictatorship.
In line with tradition, the campaign began with the customary "poster hanging" in which the party leaders took to the streets to display electoral propaganda. The prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, asked for support for his party in the general elections, saying "the past" is their "guarantee" and that they have "known how to govern" at the "most difficult times". "The challenge is now the future", he emphasised, asking the 300 plus PP supporters gathered outside the party's headquarters for their "support, effort, eagerness and enthusiasm".
The prime minister took the opportunity to highlight the way his party's management had prevented Spain from needing to be "rescued", saying that the country owed that to the "determination and courage" of those who held the reins. "We told the Spanish people our measures would produce effective, positive results, and this is what we have achieved", he went added.
For his part, the secretary general of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, called for left-wing voters to put an end to Mariano Rajoy's "government of lies". At mass meeting at the Juan de la Cierva sports centre in Getafe (Madrid), Sánchez called on the 1,200 people present to vote for the PSOE "so that the majority wins" and changes can come. Sánchez assured his supporters that "change is possible, urgent and necessary in Spain". "We only need one more vote than the PP," he emphasised, adding that the PSOE is "the only left-wing party that can beat Rajoy's right-wingers and Ciudadanos".
The president of Ciudadanos and candidate for prime minister, Albert Rivera, told his supporters he felt proud to be leading "the only political project" that is "sparking interest" in Spain and "happy" to have "the right ideas at the right time in the right place". Just before midnight, Rivera began his campaign at a Madrid hotel, saying that this was the "most important" campaign in the past 35 years and that he was "fortunate" to have "the best project" and "the best team" made up of "men and women who really know what it means to work hard" and who were ready "to compete with the two old parties", the PP and the PSOE.
Podemos' candidate for prime minister, Pablo Iglesias, began his journey towards La Moncloa saying he could "feel a comeback in the air" and that "now is the time to win" and that he was convinced the people of Spain would give him their support on December 20th. Iglesias kicked off his electoral campaign in the village of Villaralbo in Zamora, saying this time people would choose between "the past and the future, between the old and the new". Choosing this village, with fewer than 2000 inhabitants, some 4km from the city of Zamora, is in line with Podemos' desire to show their support for rural communities so that "no village is invisible".
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